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Full-Text Articles in Legal History

Judicial Review And United States Supreme Court Citations To Foreign And International Law, Ronald A. Brand Jan 2007

Judicial Review And United States Supreme Court Citations To Foreign And International Law, Ronald A. Brand

Articles

Recent decisions by the United States Supreme Court and extracurricular discussions between some of the Justices have fueled a debate regarding whether and when it is appropriate for the Court to make reference to foreign law in cases involving the interpretation and application of the United States Constitution. This debate has, to some extent, paralleled the argument over whether the Constitution is best interpreted by looking at the intent of the original drafters - an originalist approach - or by considering it to be a "living" document that must be interpreted to take account of contemporary realities. This article considers …


A Cuban Connection: Edwin F. Atkins, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., And The Former Slaves Of Soledad Plantation, Rebecca J. Scott Jan 2007

A Cuban Connection: Edwin F. Atkins, Charles Francis Adams, Jr., And The Former Slaves Of Soledad Plantation, Rebecca J. Scott

Articles

Edwin F. Atkins and Charles Francis Adams, Jr., stand out on this stage not as major players but as a particularly intriguing Boston connection. Among the truly major players, planters like Juli?n Zulueta and the Count of Casa More owned hundreds of slaves and shaped Spanish policy. On the Cuban nationalist side, few could equal the impact of Antonio Maceo, the mulato insurgent general who insisted on full emancipation at the end of the 1868-1878 war, or the thousands of rebels who fought under the orders of rebel generals Maceo and Maximo Gomez. As the master of some ninety-five patrocinados …


Taxing Consumption And Other Sins, James R. Hines Jr. Jan 2007

Taxing Consumption And Other Sins, James R. Hines Jr.

Articles

Federal and state governments in the United States use income and payroll taxes as their primary tools to collect revenue. In the rest of the world, governments also use income and payroll taxes, but rely much more heavily than does the United States on taxing consumption. Consumption taxes take many forms, including general sales taxes, value-added taxes, and excise taxes on the consumption of specific items including gasoline, alcohol, tobacco products, firearms, air travel, telephone communication, and others. The U.S. government does not use a value-added tax, making the United States unique among high-income countries and a rarity in the …


Public Rights And Private Commerce: A Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Creole Itinerary, Rebecca J. Scott Jan 2007

Public Rights And Private Commerce: A Nineteenth-Century Atlantic Creole Itinerary, Rebecca J. Scott

Articles

Tracing the history of a family across three generations, from enslavement in eighteenth-century West Africa through emancipation during the Haitian Revolution and subsequent resettlement in New Orleans, then France, then Belgium, can shed light on phenomena that are Atlantic in scope. A business letter written in 1899 by the cigar merchant Edouard Tinchant to General Máximo Gómez in Cuba frames an inquiry that opens out onto a family itinerary that spanned the long nineteenth century. Rosalie Vincent’s achievement of freedom in the shadow of slavery in Saint-Domingue in 1793–1803 can be seen as linked to her grandson Edouard Tinchant’s participation …